SOE to own VG - Sigil fires employees

[Tyen]

Originally Posted by Braen

/cheers mate. You are one of the good ones. You and Scott working together.. you could rule the world.

Truth~

[Cad]

Software industry is not for the faint of heart.. money changes hands and since there's no real property besides the people involved, the suits can and do make snap decisions that change everything.

I've never been laid off myself from a software company but I've seen many a layoff happen - some where they hired goons to stand at the door and check ID's and stop people who were getting fired. The goons would then stand over them like criminals to ensure they didn't sabotage systems while they cleaned out their desks. It was utter retardation. I left that company shortly after.

Best of luck to you guys and gals who are out of work. Keep your chins up.

[Kaylena]

Originally Posted by Nino

I will make an announcement tomorrow regarding my status...

Is it tomorrow yet? j/k

[Zarcath]

Even if SOE did pay off the 30mil debt for the rights to VG, that's still cheap considering everything else. The cost of running a studio, all the employees, with all those expenses, SOE made out like a bandit. It's like a reverse hostile take-over. Force a guy out and watch him make his own mmo and then buy it back on the cheap? It's like identity theft, letting Brad take all the heat.

From what I know of SOE's business practices, they'll probably hire back anyone that didn't previously work for them thats new to the industry and produced good results on VG. They'll put them on the SOE-VG team and have them train a new group of SOE devs on how to use the system. In a year or two they'll dump a lot of the original VG devs in-favor of their in-house trained devs, but probably keep a handful of the originals onboard. When I say handful, I really mean that, like 12 or less of the originals will still be working there in 4 years.

If they decide to make VG a "premier" product, we'll be able to tell based on how many expansions SOE will announce for VG. I'd say if they don't announce a VG expansion within the next 4 months they're going to back-burner VG like they did to TMO.

[Glaive]

I personally think Brad needs to be dropped off on an island along with Raph Koster and whatever the name is off the asshat artist who was responsible for the design of the original EQ2 character models. Hopefully, that will ensure that none of them ever work on another game again.

[Nehrak]

Originally Posted by Braen

/cheers mate. You are one of the good ones. You and Scott working together.. you could rule the world.

Concur.

[Slick Willey]

Originally Posted by tad10

But the decision to release in Jan will be looked back as the decision that killed them. To much class nerfing post-release, too many bugs at release, not enough consistent lore, no raiding when it was needed and an uber-grind for crafters -- all these things lead to pop losses. It's too bad because I've had some great times in VG.

I'm not too sure things would have been different had they released later. Many people, like myself, just found the world boring and bland and lifeless, the game boring and somewhat tedious, with stupid ideas like no instancing whatsoever, so get used to competing for camps and spawns.

I know this is going to be debated for a long time: Was it just bugs, no raid game, etc. that caused VG to fail, or was it the Vision and Brad's ideas. The *hardcore* crowd will undoubtedly insist that it was the former and not the latter, and just like communism, if it is just given another chance with the right conditions, it will succeed -- all the magic of EQ will be returned with the emergence of the greatest MMO ever.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

Even if SOE did pay off the 30mil debt for the rights to VG, that's still cheap considering everything else. The cost of running a studio, all the employees, with all those expenses, SOE made out like a bandit. It's like a reverse hostile take-over. Force a guy out and watch him make his own mmo and then buy it back on the cheap? It's like identity theft, letting Brad take all the heat.

From what I know of SOE's business practices, they'll probably hire back anyone that didn't previously work for them thats new to the industry and produced good results on VG. They'll put them on the SOE-VG team and have them train a new group of SOE devs on how to use the system. In a year or two they'll dump a lot of the original VG devs in-favor of their in-house trained devs, but probably keep a handful of the originals onboard. When I say handful, I really mean that, like 12 or less of the originals will still be working there in 4 years.

If they decide to make VG a "premier" product, we'll be able to tell based on how many expansions SOE will announce for VG. I'd say if they don't announce a VG expansion within the next 4 months they're going to back-burner VG like they did to TMO.

That is a possible scenario. Another possible scenario is that SOE will not sink anymore money into this piece of shit, consolidate to 1 server, and let it die by attrition.

Vanguard does not have any potential to make them any real money nor ever be a success in the market. Vanguard should have a "Do not resuscitate" clause.

[Teclisen]

I'll be making a post on Nino's status tomorrow as well.

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by Jait

There is no Cuppycake. She's like "The Gibson" or even the MCP of Tron.

... bah.

So I happened to be sitting at my computer when the RSS feed for F13 popped up..what can I say?

You're one to talk, Mr. Jait Devtracker.

[kcxiv]

The game was just far to fucking buggy. I think the world the idea's are fine. I still enjoy the game. Its just to fucking buggy. I know alot of people left due to ctd's every 20 min.

Oh well, we will see what happens tomorrow.

[Zarcath]

Snap, I have to go out and buy a VG collector's edition, it's worth something now that the company is up in flames.

[QforQ]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

Snap, I have to go out and buy a VG collector's edition, it's worth something now that the company is up in flames.

I wish

How do you figure?

I've got one that's only been opened a couple times.

[Tirinal]

Part of me is pleased that Brad was hoisted on his own petard, part of me is sad that this just further marginalizes the MMO market to WoW design lookalikes (CCP excluded), and most of me is just aghast that this all had to happen in a way that proved right Utnayan and all the armchair theorist wankers. Alas.

Good luck Nino et al. Make games with soul.

[Stoerm]

SOE didn't repay the budget costs on this ($30 M or whatever). That number never even enters the equation. That money is spent, lost.

SOE is in the cat-bird seat on this. If they don't buy it, it's flushed. Everything is gone. While it's probably true that they won't get ADDITIONAL funding to take it over, I feel I can safely say whatever they 'pay' will be on the backend.

It's already a failed project. SOE isn't coughing up any notable cash for it, but is rather taking it on as a burden. IF it makes money eventually, then there will be provisions to repay the original investment. This scenario is simplified somewhat, but if you think SOE sunk any actual cash outlays into 'buying' this I'd say think again.

PS: You can bet your ass Brad feels this failure in the base of his balls. Anyone who has a huge payday expected already has all of the money earmarked -- family, fun, retirement, etc. He's mentally had VG money spent for YEARS now. Believe me, he's feeling real pain.